1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to children's play structures, and more particularly to play structures designed to provide the child with a particular theme or environment through the use of various scenes, murals or the like.
2. History of the Prior Art
It is known to provide a child's play structure such as a playhouse or similar free-standing structure to enhance the child's play. Such structures are often provided with scenes, murals or the like which impart a particular theme or environment such as a school classroom, a doctor's office, a store, a spaceship or the like. The scenes or murals depict enough to suggest the desired theme or environment, while at the same time allowing the child to use his or her imagination with respect to some of the details. The child is thus able to act our various activities and sequences of events using the play structure as a prop.
Examples of children's play structures of this type are provided by U.S. Pat. No. 984,735 of Bailey, U.S. Pat. No. 4,919,982 of Hayes, U.S. Pat. No. 4,765,006 of Jackson, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,407,494 of Hummel, U.S. Pat. No. 1,881,356 of Gold, U.S. Pat. No. 3,548,552 of McBride, U.S. Pat. No. 2,837,777 of White, U.S. Pat. No. 2,608,726 of Olson, U.S. Pat. No. 1,982,433 of Hungerford, U.S. Pat. No. 1,647,733 of Keichline, U.S. Pat. No. Des. 159,019 of Valentine, U.S. Pat. No. 4,884,988 of McMurray, U.S. Pat. No. 4,696,652 of Reeder, et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,556,391 of Tardivel, et al. Such play structures are often made in a foldable or collapsible configuration so that they can be folded or otherwise substantially reduced in size to facilitate storage thereof when not in use. Such structures are assembled or erected to form a free-standing structure of use. As shown in some of the patents noted above, the play structures may form an enclosure to simulate a room or a house, and can be provided with partitions or other interior members which divide the interior into plural rooms, compartments or the like. Still other structures, such as the considerably smaller playhouse for use with paper dolls shown in the Hungerford patent noted above, provide different partitions or additions to change portions of the structure somewhere.
While conventional children's play structures such as those described in the patents noted above provide a variety of different forms, themes, ideas and features, such structures are somewhat limited when it comes to their ability to easily convert to different themes or environments. Most such structures, for example, are designed to provide one and only one theme or environment with no interchange ability being possible. Still others provide for some interchange ability, but typically at the expense of complexity and an inherent difficulty in making the changes.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a children's play structure of relatively simple, low-cost construction which is easily folded or disassembled for storage, and which has multiple scenes or murals which are easily replaced to change the theme or environment of the structure.